The scant, gray room
Where you caged me;
Me, a fox with
Silken, amber fur
And hungry teeth.
I dreamed of escaping you
That cool, spring morning
At our Swiss train station
Your heels striking echoes
And I afraid of the machinery.
“Why do we do
The things we do?” you asked.
I kissed your nose,
Like tasting a hen.
I gave my ticket to a boy,
Watched him board without bags.
My gloves pinched my skin—
Black, like your hair,
And smelling of blood.
— © Rick Baldwin
Reflection
When I wrote “The Things We Do,” I was thinking about how regret often shows up in fragments: a smell, a color, a fleeting image. Tactile images like the fox, the gloves, the train station almost create an actual persona which comes to haunt us perpetually, disguised as memories. The poem reminds me of relationships that seemed to be full of loneliness, guilt, and the remembrance of promises never met.
